SYDNEY FESTIVAL OPENS TO GREAT RECEPTION

SYDNEY, Jan. 18, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Sydney Festival has taken over the city in a celebration of exceptional theatre, dance, music, visual arts, opera and more. Over three weeks, Sydney Festival brings the harbour city to life from January 7-29.

Sydney Festival 2017 is comprised of 150 events, 73 of which are free. 454 performances will take place across 46 venues, featuring 1021 artists from 15 countries. With 16 world premieres, 9 Australian premieres and 14 Australian exclusives, summer in Sydney is not to be missed.

Sydney Festival 2017 highlights reel

This summer, for a cool change, hit The Beach – a joyous monochromatic installation of 1.1 million recyclable polyethylene balls at The Cutaway, Barangaroo Reserve. A quintessential Australian experience is reimagined by New York-based art and architecture collaborative practice, Snarkitecture.

Nude Live is a unique collaboration between Sydney Dance Company and the Art Gallery of NSW, drawing on their summer exhibition Nude: Art from the Tate collection. Six dancers choreographed by Rafael Bonachela dancers respond to works including paintings, sculptures, photographs and prints by renowned artists such as Pablo Picasso, Lucian Freud, Henri Matisse and Louise Bourgeois.

Hyde Park's much loved festival hub Meriton Festival Village is a public space where everyone should feel welcome. This year, Sydney Festival is doubling its free offering at the Village, with 21 nights of free entertainment which has proven popular amongst audiences.

Meriton Festival Village features a variety of circus, comedy, cabaret and contemporary music ticketed events, headlined by male burlesque/cabaret company Briefs Factory Theatre, described as the love child of Ru Paul’s Drag Race and an Aussie version of Cirque du Soleil.

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The Beach at the Cutaway at Barangaroo Reserve, a free interactive installation made of 1.1 million recyclable polyethylene balls, has proven to be a festival hit with audiences far and wide coming together to experience the 60-metre wide ocean free of sand.

Briefs Factory have returned to Sydney Festival as the headline act of Meriton Festival Village, with Briefs: The Second Coming opening to outstanding reviews including a five star review from Artshub. Meriton Festival Village features a new outdoor Village Stage in 2017 with a variety of circus, comedy, contemporary music and cabaret acts offering free entertainment over 21 nights.

In a world premiere performance, Sydney Dance Company have responded to powerful artworks spanning two centuries from the Art Gallery of New South Wales' major summer Sydney International Art Series exhibition Nude: Art from the Tate collection, for Nude Live. Extra dates have been added due to popular demand.

Internationally renowned UK company, Cheek by Jowl, and Pushkin Theatre Moscow, presented Shakespeare's Measure for Measure in Russian over the opening weekend to a great reception by audiences and critics alike.

Many more events are set to come to Sydney Festival including music headliners Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds and PJ Harvey. Other highlights include 1967 Music in the Key of Yes, a special Sydney Opera House concert to mark the 50th anniversary of Australia's 1967 Indigenous rights referendum.

Coming to Sydney direct from Broadway, the Australian premiere of The Encounter is an award-winning and technologically ground-breaking work from UK Company, Complicite directed by Simon McBurney.

A spotlight on Canadian artists marking the 150th anniversary of the Canadian Confederation includes Inheritor Album from Company 605; Gabriel Dharmoo's Anthropologies Imaginaires; Huff from Native Earth Performing Arts; and iD from Cirque Eloize.

SOURCE: Sydney Festival